Friday, August 31, 2007

Friday, August 31 - Day 38

Forgive me for the post today, but I don't have a lot of time to write. I still wanted to write down everything that is happening though, so I am just going to give the bullet points.

Yesterday, Kathryn wasn't doing as well and her sats would drop when the nurses would mess with her - diaper change, blood work, chest xray, etc. At about 4 pm, I was at the hospital and she dropped and took a while to come back up so they moved her to 100% oxygen again. Since then, here's the basics:

-100% oxygen since yesterday at 4 pm
-vent settings have been turned up
-sats were staying in the 60's (sometimes lower and occasionally higher) from about 4 pm-7pm
-pavulon (the paralyzer) was started again around 7pm
-as the pavulon kicked in, sats were going into the 70's (still 100% O2 and higher vent settings)
-chest xray showed that one lung was mostly blocked and the other was open
-started vibration therapy to help her "break up" the congestion (she can't cough to get it going)
-started albuterol breathing treatments to help (maddie had this for asthma/rsv)
-started decodrone to help with some swelling issues
-took another blood culture and suction culture to test for another infection (orig infection worry from the other day has been negative so far, so this is just to see if one has creeped up)
-continued with chest xrays through the night to see lung progress
-turned her to her stomach around 10 pm and lifted the hood to her bed for xrays
-when they turned her and lifted the hood, her sats improved
-she stayed the rest of the night (and is still this way) on her tummy and with the hood open
-sats elevated to 80's and 90's through the early morning (12 am - 5 am)
-ventilator settings are still elevated and oxygen still at 100%

Greg and I stayed at the hospital and got some sleep from 12 or 1 am til about 5 am. We are both working till 12 and then going to the hospital. We're ok, just tired. We don't know what the next steps are. A lot of this is wait and watch to see how she reacts to different treatments. What a long road ahead. Please pray for wisdom, patience, love and understanding for the doctors and nurses. Dr. Dicarlo is on this morning and Dr. Mena this afternoon. We were with Dr. Strange last night and I think we finally had a good connection with one of the doctors. Our baby is their baby too and we know that they will do everything that they can, but it's so hard as a parent to sit back and watch.

As parents, we are supposed to fix things for our kids and right now we can't fix a darn thing and that really sucks!! We can pray though and so can you - for all of us.

Love, Kelly

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